Well since the net seems to be the way the way things are going somewhat in terms
of coding I thought i'd check out how you actually go about doing it.
I suceeded so I thought i'd share some of the gotcha's I encountered.
This tutorial doesn't attempt to be definitive it is merely a overview
to get you going you will need to fill in some of the details yourself.
I also assume you are at least somewhat familiar with programing languages.
So here are the steps one would need to take to get going writing web apps.
Note all the software I used in this tutorial is free and open source so other
then finding a web site host you won't need to spend a penny.
The programs you need to download are the Apache server, PHP, Mysql and PHPmyadmin.
So download these apps but don't install them yet. Use the text editor of your
choice to actually code in. I use note pad++ it's free open source and it supports
, html, javascript and php and a ton of other languages for that matter but thats
another story. Make sure you download the latest versions of the software.
Use this link to handle the installation this is what I did. Be sure to follow
the instructions to the letter. If you botch it, which you may, be sure to
uninstall the programs and manually delete the directories containing the
programs. You may also need to delete the config files mentioned in the tutorial
from windows to get a clean reinstall. Just be carefull and follow the directions
the first time and save some greif.
http://www.thesitewizard.com/apache/install-apache-2-windows.shtml
If you've followed the tutorial above you should have the apache server and psp up
and running. Now to install mysql just run the install and follow the directions.
Simple but theres a catch you need to go to add remove programs and click on the
php entry. Press change, go into the extensions and be sure to include mysql and
mcrypt if there not included already. After this Reset the apache server like you
did in the tutorial.
paste the text below into a file with tester.php extension and test it from your
brower window
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
The path to run it would be -- http://localhost/tester.php
You must place the file in the htdocs directory. (It's inside your Apache Directory)
The blue screen that comes up gives information pertaining to extensions just be
sure mysql and mcrypt are there and you should be ready to go.
The point of all this is so you can test your app from your own computer without
having to upload via ftp all the time. Also you get a ton more debugging
information then you would just deploying your webpages "live". This is way faster
and somewhat more like a traditional compiler.
Now i'm explaining nothing here in terms of the coding theres a ton of tutorials
around that can help you get started. The one below is good for php.
http://www.tizag.com/phpT/
There are a ton of good html and Javascript tutorials on line. I would recomend
getting some good textbooks about php, javascript and html as these are generally
far more polished then online tutorials. There is some good ones at my local
library there probably are at yours as well if your budget is a concern.
Now a ton of people have explained how each individual language you use to design
webpages works, I found it hard to figure out how they interact together.
Html is essentially static when used alone. It is not a programming language per
say, it's best to think of it as more of a typesetting language suitible to the
display of text or graphics. The syntax is usually simply and seems designed to
be quickly parsed.
JavaScript is a programming language used to manipulate html. For example you
could use JavaScript to verify the characters in a text feild. It can also be
used to manipulate html events suchs as On_Load event which is called when a
page is loaded for example.
Both JavaScript and Html are considered the Client Side of web programming.
Meaning that this is the code that runs on the users computer not on the webserver.
So it's important to note that if you click refresh on the page all information
you entered before would be lost. You can use cookies in some cases to get
around this but this is highly limited and not effective for truly interactive
web pages. So the html and Javascript in a page are what is actually sent to
the viewer of the page, this is translated into the graphical content you see
on the screen.
You need psp or another server side scripting language to create dynamic content.
When people say server side they are taking about code that runs on the server.
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Consider if a user clicked on a page containing the program above. What happens
is the server runs the tester.php program and generates html and java script and
sends that to the user. In this case a web page is generated containing information
about your psp setup. Note if you look at the page source in your browser you will
not see the psp program only the html and javascript it generated.
So php is basically just a programing language designed to generate html for
webpages.
Mysql is also on the server side it is just a data base. You use php to
communicate with Mysql to get data in and out of the database.
You can then use php to generate webpages based on the content.
Javascript variable to PHP variable
Form variable to PHP variable
Both of the above are not possible unless you reload the page to generate new
content based on the form or Javasript variable. This is a important point for
newbies to remember. The major thing I find different about web programming is
the fact that variable communication is simply not as strait forward due to
security concerns. You often need to do some crafty stuff to get data to do
what you wan't.
Check out this tutorial for some neat tips. It also gives a good idea of what
you can and can't do.
http://www.skytopia.com/project/articles/compsci/form.html
Note: I am no where near as skilled at web coding as I am in C. So please point
out any mistakes I have made in this tutorial if your a expert web developer and
I will change it. Just remember this is intended to help people get going and
is not intended to be definitive in any way. So if your experienced try to
think back to what confused you when you started I made this tutorial to sort
out some of the things other newbie tutorial's didn't explain.
Also I've included a list of texts that may be of interest to web developers.
Note I have not read these texts myself but I will consider purchasing some of them.
PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition) (Developer's Library)
PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide
Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP
Programming PHP
More Programming Tutorials
